


Cake

by windandthestars



Category: Winter's Bone (2010)
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-17
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 10:57:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windandthestars/pseuds/windandthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The frosting seemed to materialize from nothing, sugar and butter with a bit of cream, the smell of vanilla foreign and intoxicating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cake

It's not every day that a kid turns seven, and while they don't usually do much- can't afford to do much- for birthdays, she's trying to do things differently now. There's still a wad of cash rolled up and stuffed into the toe of her dad's favorite pair of boots. It's a bit of an indulgence, something Ree had promised herself she would avoid, money did after all make people stupid, but it's been a rough couple of months not just for her but for all of them.

She can still remember turning seven, that magical summer day back before weed had turned to crank, back before Sonny even, her mother's belly not yet swollen with her second child. They had been poor then too but happier. Life had been easy and they had always had enough, just enough, but enough, with her mom working in the school cafeteria for most of the year. They had made a cake that morning, silky velvety batter poured from the mixer they had borrowed from Connie into the baking pan, flour still dusting her mother's shirt as Ree crept up onto her tiptoes to get a better look. The frosting seemed to materialize from nothing, sugar and butter with a bit of cream, the smell of vanilla foreign and intoxicating.

It had been, perhaps, the last cake baked in this house, and while that should be a bitter thought, the fact makes it seem all the more magical, mythical. She wants nothing more than to give Ashlee the same breathless feeling. Ree doesn't regret this, the red box of cake mix and the dozen eggs she had to buy because the chickens wouldn't be laying for months yet. She regrets that she hadn't been able to do the same for Sonny when he was young enough to have believed in the simple joys of butter cream frosting.

She has him help, not because she needs the help, the box of cake mix took most of the guesswork out of the equation, but because she wanted him to be a part of this. They hadn't done much for his birthday in the fall, she hadn't even been able to scrap together enough spare change to buy him the box of Bisquick she needed to make him the pancakes he had requested. She knows he understands that things are different now like she had promised him they would be the afternoon Teardrop died. He's not the kind of kid to get jealous, something she was always thankful for, but she wanted him to remember this too, not the way that Ashlee did, but remember it all the same.

She has him crack the eggs while she rummages through the cupboards for something to bake the cake in. She hadn't thought of that while she had stood in the overly lit aisles of the local grocery store. Two eggs and then another and she pulls down a square metal pan. The electric mixer, borrowed again from Connie, whirs and she laughs, at first quietly, and then more loudly, the sound still new even after all this time, bubbles forth almost effortlessly.

"I'm following the directions." Sonny frowns, defensive and she tousles his hair smiling.

"It looks great." She reassures him and he glows, suddenly enthusiastic, asking her about dyeing some of the frosting to draw a pony on the cake, and about candles.

It's early spring, a sparse time even now, but she agrees that they might be able to find something to dye the frosting with, but she wasn't sure about candles. They would have to ask mom about those.

The cake turns out lopsided, wobbly from where part of it had stuck to the bottom of the pan, but when it's covered in frosting, a shaky pony drawn on, and candles lit Ree couldn't be prouder, and from the way Sonny is grinning neither can he.

"A cake." Ashlee says in a hushed voice, watching the flickering candles. "My own cake."

"I made it." Sonny tells her and Ree steps back to watch the two of them as he explains the process to Ashlee, breaking it down into steps she can understand, but keeping it short. The kid was smart. She had done right by him.

"Vanilla." Her mom mutters. "Like your cake."

Ree's silent for a moment, lost in the sound of her mother's voice, still so rare a sound. "Just like mine." Ree's heart swells. "Vanilla, and magical, just like mine."

**Author's Note:**

> for kink_bingo: food


End file.
